Tag: Marriage

Don’t be all forceful about it and give help if it’s not wanted/needed.

Do let him/her know they’re doing a good job and are appreciated.

Don’t wait until he/she has to call attention to be appreciated.

Do be supportive whether or not things are going right.

Don’t say “I Told You So” when things go wrong.

Do apologize when you screw up, because you will screw up. We all do.

Don’t act like Mr./Mrs. Perfect. You’re not. Nobody is.

Don’t criticize his/her choices – you’re one of them.

Do learn to accept advice or help from him/her when you need it. We all need help sometimes.

Don’t treat him/her like they don’t know anything. After all… why would you marry an idiot? Did he? Did she?

Do be willing to prepare and serve him/her drinks, meals, etc.

Don’t think it’s beneath you. It’s not.

Do share the chores. You both make a mess sometimes.

Don’t think he/she is the only one who should clean up. Again… you both make the mess, you should both clean up. Your not children. Don’t act like you are.

When having a disagreement, do not negate his/her feelings or block them out when they’re talking to you. Their feelings are just as valid as yours.

Do respect him/her.

Don’t use “always” and “never”. Nobody “always” does something and “never” isn’t possible until you’re dead.

**Pro Tip** If your significant other is screaming and crazy, go look in the mirror. You’re probably the reason.

Got kids? Share the responsibility. It took two people to make them, it’s going to take two people to raise them.

Do always work on having the best relationship that you can possibly have.

Do not compare other relationships to yours or other partners to yours. Chances are someone else is looking at your relationship and your partner and wishing they had what you have.

Do remember – You could always have it better, you could always have it worse.

In a marriage, there is no such thing as “man’s work” or “woman’s work”. That is an archaic way of thinking, that needs to be done away with by both sexes. It’s about mutual respect. Marriage is, above all, a partnership that should be built on love and that mutual respect. You should both be doing everything within your power to take care of one another.

Ladies: Serving your man dinner, packing him a lunch or making him a cup of coffee, isn’t a sign of oppression. It’s a sign of care, respect and love.

Men: Serving your woman dinner, packing her lunch, making her coffee are ways you can show the lady you love and honor her. Cook her a nice meal, dish it up, and serve it to her. If you think it will detract from your manhood, think again buddy. You’re likely to be rewarded for that later.

Ladies are you listening? Feminism doesn’t mean you should never do anything for your man, it means knowing your worth and setting a high standard to ensure that you have a man who values you. It does not mean that you should never do anything nice for him, it means that you’re secure enough within your womanhood, to be okay with taking care of him and letting him take care of you back.

Men there is no place for chauvinism in a relationship in the 21st century. It never should have been a thing to begin with. Get over it.

After all, ladies and gentlemen… more than men and women, we are all human, and we all want to be cared for, loved and respected.

In matters of money, don’t compare paychecks and brag about who makes more, or belittle the one who makes less. That will make one of you feel like crap, and will undermine the relationship/partnership.

Bills should be shared or another arrangement can be made for other contributions as a whole. In other words, if one of you is a stay-at-home parent, and yes, men can be stay at home parents… that counts as a job. I know. I raised 5 boys by being a stay-at-home mom for a real long time and I worked my ass off everyday. Paychecks? Nope. Rewards? Yep. Equality.

Make smart decisions about money spending. You should never have to ask for permission to buy something, but you should always be willing to talk about a reasonable price range before the purchase is made, to be sure it’s affordable in relation to food and bills.

Never, never, never… say to him/her, “how much money did you spend?” in anything other than an accounting context for keeping track of your finances. You are not his/her father/mother. He/she is not your child.

Always remember, love is more important than anything else. Love the one you’re with, treat him/her the way you want to be treated, don’t play games. Life and love are not games. You can’t win everything, but you can lose everything. Remember that.

One last thing… stop with this BS statement: “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”

All that is, is a feeble attempt to justify rotten behavior that will eventually become the deciding factor in the end of what could have been a great relationship.

Nobody should have to “handle you” at your worst, or “deserve you” at your best. Grow up!

Many blessings… C.A. Bennett – Writer/Wife of 29 years and still learning.

Marriage is a complicated thing, isn’t it? You either love the person your with, or you want to set their underwear on fire while they’re still wearing them, and these two emotions interchange throughout a single day. Sometimes multiple times a day. There is rarely an in-between.

I – having been married going on 29 years – know a thing or two about this odd phenomena, and I am here to tell you, marriage or even just living together, is not for the feint of heart. Very often, it’s not even for the steadfast and sturdy!

My parents were not well-suited. Their marriage ended before I was six, and both went on to have second failed marriages, and in the case of my father, who went through three ex wives, (that I know of) before he married one who liked him enough to stick with it till he passed away a couple years ago. She’s a really nice lady. She’d have to be to put up with my father! My husband’s parents could tell the same story. Needless to say, the odds of long-term marriage were stacked against us, if one were to believe the statistics, and one usually does.

As if that weren’t enough to keep things from moving past the first date, we have very little in common regarding interests or activities. So much so, that we have a running joke between us – If I like it, he doesn’t and vice versa.

I’m serious! If he thinks something is funny, it’s usually because it’s repulsive, and I am not a repulsive comedy person. He likes the kind of rock & roll where people are beating on their instruments and screaming at each other, while I really love 50’s & 60’s oldies, classic rock, and classical. I love the ballet, & opera, he loves motorcycle racing, I want to sit and knit, crochet, or weave, and he wants to run, jump, lift weights and train for Crossfit. You get the idea.

So what can we attribute to our ability to beat the odds, and stick it out? I believe there are more important things than parents experiences, stats, and little things in common. For me, it’s the big things, like politics, religion, morality, and a mutual understanding that God and family come first. Nothing else matters anywhere near as much as those, and if you don’t have those big things in common, your chances of a successful long-term relationship are slimmer than ours, believe it our not!

Another big deal for me is being married to my intellectual equal. That is HUGE for me. I could never be married to a man who was a nice guy with a great body, if he isn’t very mentally stimulating. Let’s face it… one day, the body and the looks are gonna go, and he may always be a nice guy, but if I can’t have an intelligent conversation, fugetaboutit! I guess I’m a cerebral kind of person. But here’s the cool thing… so is my husband! He drives me up the freaking wall 23 hours a day, 6 days a week, but we have the BIG DEAL things in common, and we can TALK about important stuff!

But that’s us. It may not be you. We have some friends who are at total opposite ends of the spectrum where politics and religion are concerned, but they have a crazy amount of little things in common, and they simply avoid the big issues. I personally could not live that way. Why? Because if it’s important to me, I tend to be passionate about it. If I’m passionate about something, I promise you will hear me talk about it. If I can’t talk about it, you are probably not going to like my attitude much, because I do NOT like walking on eggshells.

It’s like this blog – I have so many interests and activities that I participate in regularly, that you would not believe one person would even want to be involved in so many different things at once. And yet you don’t see me posting all that much about those things. What you do see, are things that I am passionate about. My husband is the same way. Lots of little things, a few big things, and we are still here. Still together, after all these years. Either that, or we’re just stubborn… Could be stubborn!

What about you? What are you passionate about? What works for you in your relationship? What do you have to avoid to keep the peace? What do you have in common with your significant other? Feel free to comment below, as I do enjoy hearing from my readers!